Fanbase

Isaac saw a fundamental gap in social media: creators were pouring endless hours into platforms like Instagram and YouTube without direct monetization. He believed that all content has inherent value and that the world was shifting toward subscription-based consumption. Rather than building for a mass audience, he strategically focused on Gen Z and Gen Alpha—the demographic most comfortable with virtual currency and paid subscriptions.

Isaac started coding in 2018 and launched the Fanbase app in early 2019, but made a deliberate choice to keep it quiet for the first year. He wanted a proof of concept without leveraging his name or network, to see if real users would naturally come and monetize content on the platform. He funded the MVP personally, paying a local Atlanta development shop run by Ramiro Kandovas approximately $150,000. This investment was so strategically sound that the dev team became equity partners in Fanbase and remains the core engineering team today.

By 2019, Fanbase had fewer than 10,000 users but had cracked something fundamental: one creator made $6,000 in a year on the platform. That single data point—showing that creators could actually earn meaningful income—gave Isaac the proof of concept needed to raise capital. When COVID hit in 2020, he pivoted to crowdfunding via Start Engine rather than traditional venture, raising $3.5 million at a $20 million pre-money valuation (17% dilution).

The platform's monetization model proved immediately effective: Fanbase takes 20% of in-app purchases (after Apple's 30% cut), and passes 50% to creators. This meant creators were earning money on day one—something Instagram hadn't offered for over a decade. By the time of the interview, creators had earned over $300,000 collectively, with 80% of active users making at least $1. The audio room feature (similar to Clubhouse but paired with visual content) became unexpectedly sticky: daily active users averaged 45 minutes to an hour and 25 minutes per session in 2021, suggesting powerful engagement around community and live interaction.

What Isaac explicitly didn't optimize for: traditional SaaS metrics like monthly revenue reporting. While most founders obsess over MRR, Isaac prioritized user growth and community building. He acknowledged that approximately $60,000 in all-time revenue had accrued from the $300,000 in GMV (after Apple's cut and his 20% take), with additional revenue trapped in user accounts awaiting withdrawal. This focus on community over quick revenue extraction became his strategic bet.

By late 2021, Fanbase had approximately 200,000 total downloads with a recent uptick to 20,000-25,000 monthly new users (driven partly by rapper Lotto joining and hosting events on the platform). Monthly active users hovered around 49,000-50,000, with 5,000-8,000 daily active users. The team had grown to 20 people, roughly half engineers, with dedicated verticals for music, sports, and content creation. Isaac remained focused on scaling the creator community and platform features (including a new TikTok-like short-form editor called Flix) rather than chasing revenue optimization.